


a drop of rain

by Authoress (orphan_account)



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: M/M, brainwashed!tadashi, can be taken as incest or strong brotherly love, rip vicki doesnt have an ao3 account but this is for u too bb, tadashi is evil bc tadashi vs hiro fights are yummy, the fujitas as villains ye, warning for graphic description of torture, whichever tickles ur fancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:12:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Authoress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fujitas aren’t like Professor Callaghan, Hiro realizes. There’s no sad backstory guiding their actions, no plot of revenge or greedy desires that drive them. Some people are just born evil, and the Fujitas were content to wage war with the heroes and watch the city burn.</p>
<p>Then they had to go and drag what was left of Tadashi into it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. how long can you stand the pain?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meyoco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meyoco/gifts).



> well. vicki, meyo, and i got to talking and this au was born into fic form. i won't bore anyone with the details.
> 
> i drew inspiration from several sources for this fic, but the main ones would be the scrapped side villains, [**The Fujitas**](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/37700000/Big-Hero-6-Concept-Art-Deleted-Villains-The-Fujitas-big-hero-6-37708947-550-673.png). kind of disappointed that such cool gals weren't intended as FULL villains, so i ameliorated that. for reference, i've made their names (left to right) Junko Fujioka, Mei Nakagawa, and Yuri Ueno since they lack any official names.
> 
> tadashi's inspiration is a mix between **[this amazing design](http://c2ndy2c1d.tumblr.com/post/105900486200/)** and **[this one](http://starexorcist.tumblr.com/post/103561437746/)** \--but that comes later. this first chapter is more of a background story that sets the stage for both the fujitas and tadashi. i'd appreciate feedback on my characterization since this is my first bh6 fic! second chap should be up in like an hour too.
> 
> one final thing--if you don't want to read the torture scenes, stop the chapter after the fujitas' conversation with callaghan in italics. enjoy!!

“Come on, hurry! We don’t actually have much time.”

“Easy for you to say, you slipped that suit right on. Ugh, why did Robert have to give us such hideous things anyway? I feel like I’m climbing into a hazmat suit.”

“Do you _want_ to get burned to a crisp?”

“Oh, shut up.”

At a signal from the leader of the group, the two girls halted in their bickering. One of them, still struggling to zip up the front of the suit grumbled in irritation, her hair eyepatch sliding a little. “What the hell is it, Junko. No one’s around—if the fire department was here we’d have heard the sirens by now.” Rolling her eyes, the eyepatch girl’s companion shoved the eyepatch back into place.

“Just put your suit on. Unless Yuri’s actually a scaredy-cat, oh my.” Cackling, she ducked away from Yuri's swing, blonde hair flying.

Setting her helmet into place, Yuri sniffed in disdain and turned to their leader. “What are we even looking for, anyway? Thought Robert said he got the ‘bots. Oi, Mei.” The blonde ducked beneath Yuri’s arm and held up a display on the suit’s wrist.

“Not what. Who. This guy’s our target. We just need to drag him out if he’s alive,” Mei chirped. Yuri eyed the science exhibition center in front of them dubiously.

“Something tells me our mission has a low rate of success.” In front of the three, the building burned like a second sun, flames licking towards the sky. They had no need for the torches they had brought along in the off chance they were necessary. The heat of the blaze swept towards them in a pulsating wave, as if the fire were some kind living organism with a heart beating away. A wicked grin curled at the edge of Yuri’s lips. Next to her, Mei snapped her teeth together in anticipation. _Oh, this was gonna be fun. Even if that poor bastard was most certainly charred._

Junko fixed her own helmet into place and gestured wordlessly at side door surrounded by concrete walls closer to the entrance. She raised an elegant eyebrow in question, tugging the conspicuously large bag further over her shoulder. Yuri and Mei hummed agreement. Better a wall of concrete than one of windows. Moving as swiftly as they could in the clunky suits, the three Fujitas made for the door, Mei reaching it first and ushering the other two in.

Once inside, the fireproof suits began to circulate oxygen to the girls, who scanned the burning wreckage for any signs of life. _Near the entrance, Robert had said_. Junko led the way, going off the map in her head while the other two peeked under fallen debris. It was getting hot. The suits could resist fire well enough, but the heat was near unavoidable. Through another doorway, around the remains of someone’s science project, up the stairs…

“ _There!_ ” Yuri shouted across the short-range com, taking the lead towards a dark object a few meters away. Her instincts had been correct. Before them, sprawled across the ground and covered in debris, was their target.

“ _Go figure, the girl with one eye found him_ ,” Mei huffed. “ _And—oh wow, he’s definitely dead right?_ ”

“ _Looks to be that way_ ,” Yuri agreed readily, wrinkling her nose at the unnatural twisted position of his arm and stump where a foot should have been. Yuck.

Crouching down, Junko waved her built-in sensor over his body. Checking the reading, she made a slight noise of surprise and held up her sensor to the others. Their eyes widened.

“ _He’s alive?!_ ” Mei screeched, looking at the broken body in horror.

“ _Barely_ ,” Yuri murmured, eyeing the readings. “ _Great. Now we have to drag him out._ _C’mon, we better be quick._ ” Shoving away as much debris as they could, the girls excavated the near-dead man’s body from the rubble. Junko unzipped the large bag she had brought along with her, dumping out an even more charred skeleton and kicking it under a fallen window frame.

“ _Ugh, this is hardly glamorous work_ ,” Mei grumbled. “ _Dinner’s on me, girls, and we are going somewhere **nice**._ ” Balancing his weight between the three of them, they were able to pull and drag the target back along their path. Behind them, a metal beam cracked and fell, smashing into the marble of the steps where the boy had been, cracking the floor and their dummy instantly.

“ _Well, that makes things easier on us_ ,” Yuri says cheerfully. “ _Bye-bye, poor Yorick!_ ”

Junko kicks Yuri impatiently and nods towards the door. “ _Yeah, yeah I know this guy is literally dying. I got it._ ” Mei kicks down the door when they reach it, blowing it wide open to reveal their ride, already in gear and ready to go. The girls handed the boy off to some of Callaghan’s associates and stripped out of their suits, tossing them in the back of the van and climbing in. As soon as the door slammed shut, they were off.

Being able to see him in the light did not improve Yuri’s opinion on his chances of survival. On the plus side, all his wounds had been cauterized, so he wasn’t suffering from blood loss or infection. On the downside, he was missing his left foot and the right side of his face. And his right arm wouldn’t be staying attached much longer. The rest of his body was either mildly burned or missing entire chunks of skin.

“He looks pretty dead to me,” Yuri asserted. “And if he’s alive, one look in the mirror and he’ll _want_ to be dead.” The hired paramedics didn’t pay her any attention.

There was a gasp to her left, and Mei practically threw herself across Yuri’s lap to get a closer look at the boy. “Oh, but Yuri! Look at that strong jaw and handsome features! He’s a looker for sure.”

Junko tilted her head in interest. Yuri looked at her in horror. “Oh god, not you too Junko. He’s a carcass with a pulse!”

Suddenly Mei grabbed her face and forced her to look at the burn victim. “Look at him. Look closely. Do you see the half of him that still exists?” Mei’s voice is ice. Yuri’s eyes run over smooth muscles and a healthy figure (excluding the marring of the fire). So he was in good shape. So what?

Mei laughs when she voices her thoughts aloud. “So what? _So what?_ Oh Yuri, for a veritable genius you sure lack creativity. He’s _lovely_. And what do you think Robert is gonna do when he’s scraped this beautiful boy’s brain for the information he wants?”

“Eliminate the witness, of course,” Yuri growls, wrenching her face from Mei’s grasp. “ _So what?_ ”

Mei reaches one hand to stroke the left side of the boy’s face, fingers trembling. Her eyes roam over his features, fascinated. “It’s not like we don’t have the means to…save…this wretched creature. You two have the smarts; I have the in. I can get you whatever parts you need.” She flings herself into Junko’s arms. “Oh Junko, Yuri—let’s _keep_ him.”

“Keep him?” Yuri parrots. Junko furrows her brow.

“Keep him. Train him. Make him _ours_ , make him _serve_ us, make him _love_ us.” Mei turns back to the boy, eyes wild.

“What was once beautiful can be made beautiful again,” Junko whispers, low and deadly.

Yuri rolls her shoulders. “Alright. I’m willing to humor this. We take him off Robert’s hands, but we do more than that.” Her eyes dance over his body, cool and calculating. “We reset him; fix everything, augment everything. And really, who better to serve as protector of the Fujitas than a nameless dead man turned human weapon?”

_(“Oh Robert, darling, there’s been a slight change of plans.”_

_“You brought him, correct?”_

_“Mmhmm! But the terms of our…agreement…are no longer valid.”_

_“What?”_

_“Mei, if you will.”_

_“You see, Mr. Callaghan sir, I’ve taken quite a liking to our mystery man. We want him.”_

_“Preposterous! I need the knowledge he has in his head of Hiro Hamada’s plans for the microbots. He’s the only one who had access to them besides the brat who created them.”_

_“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You scrape his brain dry for that pathetic revenge plan of yours and then throw us the used carcass. As long as he lives and breathes we can make use of him.”_

_“Tadashi Hamada cannot be allowed to escape, nor can his existence reach the public eye.”_

_“Don’t worry about that. By the time we’re done with him he won’t remember his own name, let alone any family that comes looking for him. They wouldn’t recognize him, anyway.”_

_“…”_

_“Do we have a deal, Robert?”_

_“…You Fujitas are the most inhuman and soulless creatures I’ve had the misfortune to meet.”_

_“Don’t forget that you hired us out and destroyed that boy. There’s blood on your hands, too. Are you ready to kill a man and any person who stands in your way, Mr. Callaghan?”_

_“If that will get you demons away from me faster, then so be it.”_

_“How generous. Come on, Mei, Junko. We have plans of our own to make.”)_

_\--------------------_

Tadashi doesn’t wake up. Waking up would imply that he came into full consciousness and understanding of the world around him. Tadashi does not see anything clearly other than the memory of Hiro, small and afraid, eyes reflecting the blaze that Tadashi threw himself into. If he could think, Tadashi would think to find his brother immediately, wrap him in the tightest hug he could muster and apologize again and again. But Tadashi cannot see, think, or hear. He can feel—slight tugging on his shoulder, the side of his face, somewhere further down his leg—kind of like being shaken gently by a child.

Tadashi does not wake. Instead, he flashes.

There’re always bright lights, always the haze of drugs slowing his system. Figures—thin, dark, and nightmare-like—reoccur in his hallucinations. Dressed in black, their spindly fingers reach for him, caress his body, through his body, right into his chest cavity and his organs, stroking the wet, pulsing muscle there. It’s unpleasant and he cries out, though it is a sound far down a tunnel, too far to be his own, surely. The figures wear masks of white, smiling gleefully as they prod into him, red lines of blood below their eyes. They bring the light, they bring the dark.

He flashes. He drifts. He thinks often of Hiro.

There comes a day when the three white faces are joined by a fourth, taller and more imposing than them. Their leader, then. Tadashi urges his tongue to shape the words, to find him the answer he needs. _Where is Hiro? Is he safe? Does he know I—_

That’s new. The white faces never hurt before.

It’s a distant pain, akin to the prodding, but it leaves a dull throb behind that is worse than the prodding. Tadashi doesn’t like it. Down the tunnel he can see the white faces shifting like long grass in the breeze, their leader the wildest blade, whipping back and forth. Tadashi is unsettled by this new white face. The sound is as it would be underwater, gargled and angry, but coming into focus.

With it, so does the discomfort. Old aches Tadashi did not know existed groan and declare their existence. He’s rushing down the tunnel, mind clearing rapidly, but with it his vision blurs. He cannot feel the tears wet on his cheeks under the _pain pain pain_ , but he knows they are there.

_(But it’s wrong, so very wrong. His left eye bleeds water but the right remains stoic and unmoved by the gravity of Tadashi’s suffering. He wonders if it is lost, yet he can see as clear as day through the unyielding organ. Why why **why**._

_Unnatural. Unnatural. It hurts, it hurts so much, why can’t I cry, what is happening?_

_Where did you put my eye, you bastards?)_

“Tadashi Hamada.” Tadashi’s head jerks up at his name and he howls at the instant spike of pain down his neck, the feeling of skin burning and tearing. He’s on fire. He’s on fire, _again_.

“H-h-elp…” he croaks out, praying that the three white faced figured will show him mercy. _Heal me. Kill me. Just get rid of my skin, take it all, please, please._

One of the smaller white faces turns to the leader, speaking in a low, silky voice. “He needs skin grafts. Breaking him like this may destroy his skin permanently, effective as the treatment may be in getting your information.”

“There isn’t enough time for that,” the leader snaps.

“It’s fine, isn’t it, Junko? He doesn’t have to be in mint condition to be perfect,” the smallest chirps lightly. _What are they talking about? Was it him?_

“Tch, the limb graft is pulling. Even torn over here! Gah, we’re gonna have to tear all the seams out and start over on the right side. No wonder he’s crying; he’s literally being torn apart,” the last white face spoke, rough and annoyed.

_No time to get distracted_. “H-Hiro?”

The four froze. Tadashi tried again. “Hiro…Hamada…”

The small one bounced over to him, giggling. “Imagine that! He still knows who he is after all that trauma. Oh, he’s a strong one.” It looks over to the others. “If you have to rip out all the bindings, might as well try and get information out of him. Can’t have him sane, after all.”

“Fair enough,” the angry one sighs.

The leader steps forward and holds a bright screen in front of Tadashi, who squints at the light. “Tadashi Hamada. Do you recognize this blueprint?”

_Blueprint? That didn’t matter. What mattered was the pain searing down his neck, numbing his face, the thickness of blood running down his arm that he could feel, he was sure of it. He needed help, needed to stop the pain, needed **help** …_

“Nnghh. Ha…help,” he whimpers.

All of a sudden, Tadashi could very literally feel a blade being dragged through the skin on his neck, ripping and tearing the blade (was it _embedded_ in his _skin_?) free. The burst of pain flashed white-hot against his eyelids (eyelid, eye _lid_ , there was only _one_ ) and drew a twisted howl from his throat that didn’t sound even remotely human. It tore the inside of his throat raw to match the searing slash across his neck. He gasped for breath through his nose, cheek wet with tears once again.

“Please…please…” he begged, not sure what he was even asking for. Once again, the blueprint was shoved before him.

“Do you recognize this blueprint?” Tadashi shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the fire eating him alive.

The second tear hurt even more than the first.

 

\------------

 

When Tadashi wakes again his skin aches all over but the tearing and ripping holes all along his right side do not hurt. He opens his eyes wearily, feeling as if he had not slept in years. The four stand before him once more. And once more, the blueprint is presented to him.

“Do you recognize this blueprint?” Tadashi looks at it, fear churning his insides and making him tremble. He did not want the tearing pain to return.

The blueprint, thankfully, is familiar. He can do this. He can answer the question. Perhaps they will not hurt him. “It’s my brother’s,” he says softly. “Hiro Hamada.”

“Good,” the leader praises him. No pain ensues. Tadashi slumps in relief.

“What is this a blueprint of?” The leader asks.

Another easy one. “It’s the diagram of a microbot, 1032 times scale.”

“Good.” The leader seems pleased. “Now, tell me what each of these parts labeled are.”

Hmm. Trickier. Tadashi purses his lips and thinks hard about it. He lists off the easy ones—casing, electromagnets, basic carbon skeleton—before he realizes what he’s doing. He breaks off.

“Continue,” the leader orders.

Tadashi shakes his head. “That’s…that’s not your blueprint. It belongs to my brother. That’s his property.”

A long sigh comes from the smallest white face. “I liked him better when he didn’t talk. All that wrinkling of his brow doesn’t do that face justice.”

“Not that it matters; he hasn’t had the skin grafts yet,” the angry one mutters.

The leader also sighs. “Junko, would you?”

The silent one steps towards Tadashi, slow and purposeful. In its hand, a lighter is flicked open, the tiny flame, flickering to life. He sees it.

_The fire, the fire. In Hiro’s eyes, it was reflected there; that’s all Hiro saw. He saw the fire, he never saw me, doesn’t know I’m alive, but it hurt so bad, god, **not the fire**!_

The silent one does not hesitate to light the flame on the skin right below Tadashi’s good eye. He screams and thrashes, _he’s burning_ , and he can see it coming for him, the flame, to devour his eye.

“Junko! Enough!” The leader calls. “He needs to be able to see to give me my information.” The silent one shrugs but backs off.

The leader settles down in front of Tadashi. “Finish.”

Tadashi shakes his head—that’s Hiro’s precious creation, he worked so hard, day and night—

Again the pain.

“Finish.” _No._

“Finish.” _No._

“Finish.” Tadashi’s lip trembles but he does not shake his head. He rasps out one part. Then the next. And the next.

_I’m so sorry, Hiro._

 

\-------------

 

The leader stops asking, after a while. After a million blueprints and a million composition questions and a million procedures. He leaves altogether, and then it’s just the demons. The demons do not ask questions.

They don’t say much of anything at all. They don’t make demands of him, although he offers them anything and everything over and over. He returns to the not-awake for a time, flashing to lights and masks on masks and scalpels and wires and skin and metal. It is a reprieve and Tadashi allows himself to drift and to forget. What was pain? What was suffering? What was his betrayal, again?

They wake him to douse him in incense and choke him, to watch and to feel black-tipped fingers all over him, making him drift further, forget more. It’s like a spell being cast over him again and again. It’s nice. It’s better than the tearing or the burning.

When Tadashi forgets Hiro’s name, he jerks out of it.

“ _No!_ No, what are you doing to me, _stop!_ His name is…is…” Tadashi collapses back, sweat sticking to every part of his body. “…Hiro.”

“Plan B, I guess,” the angry one says.

It’s a lot harder for Tadashi to remember when he jolts and shakes with the electric current, sparks jumping over his arm and across his face. His body jumps even when the current stops. He foams at the mouth. For one breathless moment, he walks the line between living and dead.

_I am Tadashi Hamada._

“Start the current.”

_I am…Tadashi Hamada._

“Start the current.”

_I…am Tadashi…Hamada._

“Start the current.”

_I…am Tadashi._

“Start the current.”

_I’m…I’m…_

“Start the current.”

_I…_

“Start the current.”

**_I am nothing._ **

“Hey, woah! Don’t say that!”

_What?_

“You are something!”

_Am I?_

“Yes! You’re ours.”

_I am…yours._

“Yep! That’s right. All you have to do is obey us, okay? Forever and ever.”

_Obey…forever…_

“Can you do that?”

_If that is what I am, then so be it._

_So be it._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate writing fight scenes

“Hey everyone! I’m ba—oh.”

Honey Lemon steps into the ‘secret headquarters’ of Big Hero 6 only to be faced with the scene of complete carnage. Front and center, Fred is collapsed halfway into the dinosaur…dragon…costume-thing he had left a note on explicitly telling himself not to touch. Amusingly enough, it looks as if the creature had eaten half of him before keeling over like much of the rest of their team.

To her right, she hears groaning and sees Wasabi collapsed on the couch, smothering his face with his hands. “This is the end,” he mutters. “I can’t stay a moment longer in this room or I am actually going to die.” Behind him, Gogo bounces a ball from the ground, to Baymax, and then back to her. Baymax tracks the movement of the ball too slowly. On Baymax’s other side, Hiro stuffs cheese puffs into his mouth with the kind of mechanical disinterest characteristic of teenage boys. Honey Lemon has to stifle a giggle. He’s just like Cass Hamada, stress eating.

“Oh, is that you Honey Lemon? Can you give a bro a hand here?” Fred’s voice calls out from muffled deep in the dinosaur. Honey Lemon obliges, yanking her friend out of the jaws of death.

“Whew, I owe you one. Thought for sure I was a goner.” Fred shoots her a thumbs-up. Honey Lemon returns it, then faces the rest of the group, hands on her hips.

“Come on, get up everyone. This isn’t much of an HQ if we treat it like a dump.” There’s muffled sounds of disinterest from the remaining three, but Baymax is courteous enough to answer Honey Lemon’s call, prompting the others to slink over. They sit in a rough circle. (Well. Fred sits in the middle, as per usual.)

“So! How has everyone’s day been? Had any luck fighting crime and helping out the good people of San Fransokyo?” Honey Lemon asks cheerfully.

“I helped some freshman move into their dorms,” Wasabi volunteers. “And I organized all their stuff alphabetically and color-coded it.”

“That’s great!” Honey Lemon exclaims. “Anyone else?”

“Oh! My dad finally let me get a design for the Ferrari!” Fred throws his arms in the air. “How does a white tiger breathing fire with the words ‘BORN TO BE WILD’ written across the front sound?” Wasabi smacks his forehead in time with Gogo popping her gum.

“That’s, uh, nice,” Honey Lemon manages. “I saved a cat stuck in a tree.”

“I got a speeding ticket,” Gogo adds. This time, the entire team turns to look at her. She shrugs one shoulder and raises an eyebrow. “They took it back once they recognized me.”

“And I taught Baymax how to fold laundry for me,” Hiro breaks in, sighing. “So that makes one out of six of us who actually used their abilities to help the world. How did we fall from apprehending bank thieves and chasing getaway cars to wasting our time and breaking the law?” He flops back against Baymax, dejected. “This sucks.”

It’s not like anyone could argue with him. It was one thing saving the entire city from imminent danger and another thing altogether to help old ladies cross the street. Put simply, without the action that Professor Callaghan’s revenge plan had provided, being a superhero was boring. _To wish for a supervillain, though…_ Honey Lemon thought. _That’s something we should never resort to._

A buzzing in her purse distracted her. She unzipped it and pulled out her phone, her entire face lighting up when she read the caller ID. “Oh my gosh, hi Yuri! Wow, it’s been so long, how’re your projects going? Ah, that’s great to hear…” The rest of the team observed one side of the conversation with mild interest.

“Hmm? Uh…nope, we aren’t doing anything much. Just hanging out. Nothing crazy like saving the world or anything, nope nope.” Gogo mouthed ‘is she serious?’ to Wasabi who held up his hands in surrender.

“Oh, really now? Yes, yes I’d love to see it. Mind if I drag the crew along? Okay, sweet! See you soon!” She hung up her phone and looked at the expectant crowd. “Well, I solved our boredom problem, guys. My friend Yuri said she found something interesting on her scanner that she’d like us to take a look at.”

“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds awesome,” Fred agreed.

“The rest of us are in for sure,” Hiro added.

\--------------

They were greeted outside the university by a very laid-back looking girl with an eyepatch. “You don’t see that every day,” Gogo muttered before trotting past her without a second glance. Yuri’s gaze followed her with amusement.

“That’s a pretty neat battle scar you’ve got there,” Hiro said from below Yuri, and she turned to face him, grinning. “What’d you lose it to: spoon, laser, or a fight?”

“Neither,” she replied coolly, raising an eyebrow. “Cut it out myself and replaced it with a superpowered laser.”

Hiro returns her dubious look. “Really now. That’s something I’d like to see.”

Yuri bared her teeth in a not altogether friendly smile. “Well, that’s fine and all, but I have no control over it. If you’d like to be sliced in half, it’s sure to do the deed.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Hiro replied, confident. He peered at it as Yuri lifted the edge just a tad.

“Ha ha, very funny.” Honey Lemon rolled her eyes. “Guys, this is Yuri Ueno, Technological Design major. She has an internship with the Department of Defense coming up, too.” All around were the appropriate noises of greeting and appreciation of her accomplishment.

“It’s not as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be,” she said dismissively, waving a hand. “Now follow me, I want your genius opinions on this.” Leading them to her lab, she walked around to a large table with a detailed digital map displayed across it. Off to the side, there was a pulsating red dot.

“What’s that?” Wasabi wondered.

“That,” Yuri sighed, “is the anomaly. I just can’t figure out what would be setting off my sensors.”

“Hey!” Fred examined the dot closer. “That’s right near my neighborhood! We were just there.”

“Tch,” Yuri grumbled. “If I had known that, I would have asked you to check it out for me, Honey.”

Honey Lemon shakes her head. “Water under the bridge.”

And then at once, the whole world shook. In this distance, a massive _boom_ sounded, like a cannon being set off. The ground shook and delicate tools on shelves teetered off, smashing to the floor. The group jolted in an attempt to steady themselves, most using the table for balance. The shuddering halted after a moment, but everyone in the room was still panting from the adrenaline high.

“What. Was that,” Gogo hissed. “An earthquake?” She glanced at the table. “Hey, where’d the dot go?”

Yuri’s eye darted across the map. “ _Shit_ ,” she breathed. “Quick, turn on the news!”

Wasabi fumbled with the clicker but turned on the TV in her lab. What they were faced with was an inferno of unspeakable magnitude. The house wasn’t even that recognizable under the torrent of flames, but Hiro caught sight of the destroyed statue in a helicopter pan.

“Fred’s mansion?” He murmured weakly. The whole group gasps as recognition sets in and they ascertain that yes, it really was Fred’s mansion.

“We left just in time,” Honey Lemon whispered. “We could have…”

Fred goes pale for a moment before exhaling loudly. “Thank god I sent Heathcliff out for groceries,” he says. It’s one of the few times they had heard Fred being so serious.

 _“Wait, what is this? There are people stranded on the rooftop!”_ The voice of the reporter drags everyone’s attention back to the TV, horrified. Who could have gotten trapped there?

But as the camera zooms in, it’s clear that this was no accident—the fire or the people on top of the burning building.

_“We are coming to you live where just outside San Fransokyo, a bomb has gone off, decimating one of the homes in this upper class neighborhood. Standing on top of the roof is a group of three claiming to be ‘the Fujitas’, and they have a message for our local hero squad, Big Hero 6.”_

The nerd crew go rigid. Behind her hand, Yuri smiles slyly.

The camera zooms in on the smallest of the three, blonde hair and pink kimono whipping in the wind kicked up by the helicopter. In one hand she held a megaphone, waving it to get the attention of the camera crew, and the other hand was casually slung over her shoulder, holding a mace and chain. She winked at the camera once and then dove straight into her speech.

_“Good people of San Fransokyo! Bad people of San Fransokyo! And of course, those lovable kids from Big Hero 6! I’d like to give a warm introduction to your latest batch of supervillains!”_

Honey Lemon’s blood turned to ice.

 _“We are the Fujitas, maidens of destruction. Our only goal? To wreck as much havoc on the city as we can. Death? Chaos? Hysteria? Count us in. We’ve decided to make our official debut by destroying the so-called ‘secret headquarters’ of the legendary six.”_ Her face turned serious. _“We mean business, so you guys better be fun to toy with. Otherwise this city’s gonna burn, baby burn.”_

Hiro was extremely bothered by not only the new development, but the fact that the cameraman made no effort to capture the two figures in the back. His mind was already at work, trying to devise a strategy to take them down, but he heeded specifics. Height, weight, age, gender, apparent strength…argh, he couldn’t measure any of that with this angle!

 _“I’d like to issue a declaration to Big Hero 6—come fight us. Test our strength. Get to know us. Gather as much data as your genius brains can hold, because that way, when we defeat you at your most prepared, our victory will be all the sweeter. And until then,”_ she glances down at the city, _“we’ll be having a real party.”_

And with that, the transmission cut off. Whether the Fujita smashed the camera or killed the man, the nerd crew never did find out. Exchanging glances, they made for their own labs, where their suits were hidden. Honey Lemon paused right before she made it out the door. Turning sheepishly to Yuri—who had her eyebrow raised—she fiddled with her bag.

“Er, you can keep a secret, right?”

Yuri rolled her eyes. “Get gone, superhero. Go save the world or something.”

Honey Lemon brightened and took off, calling a ‘thank you!’ over her shoulder. Yuri waited until there was silence once more in her lab. Pressing the com in her ear, she murmured, “This is Yuri, checking in to say that our superheroes are on their way. No one suspects a thing. Although I still think we should have just blown them up.”

 _“Oh yeah, because that worked so well for brocon over here. Being blown up in a building does not equal dead,”_ Mei snorted over the com. _“’Sides, I want to see how he fights.”_

“Right, well, I’ll be ten minutes behind them, so don’t wait up,” Yuri said, putting up her bun.

_“We never do.”_

\-----------------

The streets are hardly recognizable by the time Big Hero 6 show up. Up and down the lanes, shattered glass mingles with rubble and broken shop wares, cars rammed headfirst into fire hydrants and lamp poles. The sounds of pained cries and distant screaming urge the heroes on, despite Baymax’s (and everyone else’s) initial inclination to stay and help. The closer they get to the chaos, the more fearful the people fleeing for their lives and the more apparent the orange in the distance was. The Fujitas were going to burn the city to the ground.

At the epicenter of the destruction, an unfamiliar Fujita was hurling bombs through the display windows of shops along the street, avoiding people and rubble with unnaturally fast roller skates. (Were they engineered with electromagnets, like Gogo’s were? From so great a distance she couldn’t tell, but the idea that her tech was being used to harm innocents lit a furious fire in her chest.)

“Gogo, wait!” Wasabi’s voice was lost under the weight of her agitation, but Gogo wasn’t stupid enough to think that she could take this criminal on her own.

“Wasabi, back me up,” she commanded over the coms in their helmets. “Fred, you and Honey Lemon have enough mobility to look for the one on the news broadcast. Hiro, take Baymax and scout ahead, you’re faster than the rest of us. We’ll take them two-on-one.”

“Roger,” the team chorused, and Gogo zeroed her focus on the enemy, a tall and deceptively dainty woman twirling a parasol and looking right at her. Gogo didn’t slow upon approach, but she did give the woman some berth, the casual posture making her faintly anxious.

Circling her from behind, Gogo threw her disk in an arc, hoping to throw the Fujita off with an unusual pattern, but before the disk could make contact, she flipped the parasol to her other shoulder and blocked the disk with a faint _clang_. Gogo caught the rebound and narrowed her eyes, this time shooting both disks in an ‘x’ formation in quick succession, still keeping moving. The Fujita lazily twirled the parasol and blocked both of the disks, sending one flying dangerously close to Gogo’s neck. Muttering a curse under her breath, Gogo caught the disks and came to halt in front of the woman, Wasabi finally joining her.

“Who are you?” Gogo hissed, aware of Fred and Honey Lemon sneaking across the rooftops and past their enemy.

The tall woman took a long breath and pointed the parasol at them. “Junko,” she replied softly. “If you’re quite finished playing…” Something inside the parasol clicked, and then spikes appeared at each edge and out the front. “I’ll be making my move now.”

Quick as Gogo on her skates, Junko lashed out at them with the parasol spikes in lethal swirls, stealthily avoiding Wasabi’s blades and blocking Gogo’s offensive measures. Her strikes, when they connected, were aimed at the holes or seams in their armor, always the weakest parts. And when cornered, she flew backward and flipped the parasol to fire bullets from the shaft that also served as a gun. Wasabi, without the movement capabilities of Gogo, found himself at the receiving end of the distance attacks, although he was able to slice the bullets down. Gogo took one of these opportunities to directly attack Junko, thinking that she was at her weakest when firing. It was a painful mistake that Gogo learned from when the long barrel of the gun whipped across her stomach when she was going full speed, knocking her off her feet and leaving her breathless.

With Gogo down for a few moments, Junko took advantage of the situation and engaged Wasabi aggressively, using intimidation to push him back. Gogo choked out a breath and snarled, praying that the others had better luck than they.

Unfortunately, Mei proved to be a far more aggressive enemy than Junko, pursuing Fred and Honey Lemon after every shot they took, agile enough to dodge Fred’s fire blasts and some of Honey Lemon’s stickier chem-balls. They found that using the smoke ones and Fred’s fire during the confusion was the only way to stall her from forward pursuit. But even then, she chased after them, dogged and laughing wildly, mace and chain thrown around like it weighed nothing. Fred took a hit to the chest from it after one of their less successful smokescreens and went flying off the roof and into the pavement. Luckily he was only shaken, but Honey Lemon had to fend off their attacker alone for a harrowing few minutes.

Throwing up a wall that bounced the next swing of the chain back onto Mei—and earning an irritated hiss from the Fujita—Honey Lemon took that moment to call across the com for a status update. “Come in, team! How’s everyone holding up?” Mei broke through the wall and Honey Lemon jumped back, off the roof ledge, bouncing on a bright orange substance before hitting the street. Passing Fred, she ducked behind him to contact the other heroes while he blasted the incoming Fujita. “We’re barely holding on over here,” she added.

“Make that two of us,” Wasabi grunted. “We can’t get an in.”

“Any news on the third?” Gogo called.

“We’re looking, but I don’t know where the other one is,” Hiro reported. “Baymax and I have scanned the area, but no creepy, kimono wearing girls have attacked us from the sha—AHHH!” Hiro’s transmission cut off.

“Shit,” Gogo growled.

“Hiro, we’re getting pretty worried, man,” Fred tried after a few more moments of silence.

“Ugh…yeah I’m okay, sent Baymax off to take care of her,” Hiro groaned finally. “She leapt off a building and threw me off Baymax, dragging him down with her. Well, at least they’re all accounted for.” The sounds of clashes reached Hiro even in the tiny alleyway he had fallen into. _Thank god for the suit_ , he thought, relieved. _I’m gonna have to make some upgrades to ensure that doesn’t happen again…how embarrassing_.

He jogged out into the main street, wrecked but not as bad as some of the others. Examining his tracker, he found Baymax to be located a few blocks south of where he had fallen. “Time to join the fight,” Hiro huffed, turning on his heel and rubbing the sore spot on his neck.

The building in front of him exploded into flames in a blast that physically knocked him back a few steps. Hiro shielded his eyes instinctually, flinching away from the onslaught of heat that burst out. The dark and quiet street erupted into ominously dancing shadows and a crackling roar that split the night air. Hiro forced his eyes open just a tad, trying to assess the situation.

It was the library that had caught fire. Three stories, a newer building, lots of windows on it, flames pouring out the doors and cracked glass, any opening they could, like they were choking on the smoke, choking…like Hiro had when…

 _No! Don’t think about that night, Hiro Hamada! You hold it together, your friends need you!_ But the more he looked at it, the more he heard the distant screams, the too-far cries of sirens, and Tadashi…

_“Someone has to help him.”_

Hiro can’t get a breath in. His pulse is skyrocketing, flickering in time with the lights before him, and he collapses on his knees, unable to look away. He gasps, again and again, clutching desperately at his chest, but it’s like _he’s_ the one trapped inside, like _he’s_ with Tadashi there, drowning in a sea of fire. The trembling begins in his limbs and his vision blurs at the edges, from tears or faintness he doesn’t know, and that’s when the beeping starts, soft in the back of his helmet.

_(A few blocks down, Baymax sits straight up from the pile of rubble he’s collapsed in, swiveling his head to face Hiro’s direction, the beeping echoed in his sensors._

_“Ya wanna go again, marshmallow?” Yuri cackles, snapping her fingers at the robot, hand on her hip. Baymax doesn’t look at her._

_“Hiro is in trouble,” he states simply, and then excavates himself from the debris with his rocket boosters, taking off in Hiro’s direction, leaving Yuri to yelp and snarl at him on the ground.)_

Tadashi runs into that blaze, again and again. Logically, Hiro knows that isn’t possible— _Tadashi’sdeadhe’sdeadandgonehe’sfucking **dead**_ —but he isn’t thinking with the logical side of his brain, and every hallucination hurts just as bad as the first one did. He chokes out a wordless cry and falls forward, just managing to catch himself. Somehow, the movement stops Tadashi from running and he just stands there, balancing on the brink of life and death. _Come back to me_ , Hiro wants to say to the hallucination. _You’re my brother; you’re supposed to look after me, **come back** —_

Hiro rubs his eyes, yet the hallucination does not disappear. Standing before him, their figure outlined by the flames, is a person. They don’t make a move towards or away from the fire. They just stand there, still. He leans forward, squinting.

The person turns slightly, and the light reveals a white fox mask, its design not unlike Professor Callaghan’s had been. Hiro’s heart sinks. He decides that the person is most likely male, judging from their height and build, but whoever he is, a mask like that means he’s probably not very friendly. Hiro shuffles backwards a bit, conscious of his near non-existent offensive capability, but that tiny movement draws the figure’s attention to him. Hiro squeaks, because _holy god, that is a red LED light where his eye should be!_

The light fixes on him, but the man does not move. He’s dressed oddly, most of his skin covered. Especially noticeable is his right arm, glinting with some kind on metal on it—Hiro gulps—and his left, completely covered in wrappings. He raises his right arm slowly to point at Hiro, not saying a word. Hiro’s eyes go wide. Is he holding a gun? A knife? Where the hell was Baymax?

As if summoned, Baymax lands behind Hiro, a protective golem shadowing his master. The fox-face doesn’t even bother to put up a fight. He hunches up and leaps into the safety of the shadows before Hiro can blink.

“Damn, I could have asked you to scan him,” Hiro says to Baymax, disappointed.

“Hiro, my sensor detected that you were showing signs of distress, specifically, the beginning symptoms of a panic attack. However, it appears that your hormone levels and vitals have returned to normal. Do you need any further assistance?” Baymax asks.

Hiro sighs. “I’m good for the most part. But I think I’m too shaky to hop on your back right now.”

“Noted,” Baymax says, picking up Hiro in his arms and lifting off at a slower speed so as not to lose hold of his patient or aggravate his symptoms.

“Oh shit!” Hiro exclaims. “We’re in the middle of a battle! Is everyone okay?” He glances around Baymax's armor anxiously.

“All vital signs are normal,” Baymax reports, and Hiro sighs in relief. “However, their movements are away from the site of the conflict, and the com’s backlog seems to suggest that Big Hero 6 were soundly defeated.”

Hiro winces at that. Their first real battle in ages and they had started out rusty. Against such dangerous opponents, too…Callaghan had caused plenty of deaths due to collateral damage, but the Fujitas were putting in an effort to make it so. They wanted people to die, for things to be destroyed. It was despicable. Big Hero 6 had to get better.

Hiro is the last to arrive back at the nerd lab, and when he walks in the room, the atmosphere of dejection is nearly palpable. He understands immediately when he sees the state of everyone’s gear. All their armor is chipped, and most of the team members are sporting the starts of bruises, a problem Baymax immediately takes to attending to. Gogo is furiously tearing apart her disk shooters, both of which appeared to be crushed inwards, preventing their functionality. Wasabi is down one laser blade, although the other seems to be fine. Honey Lemon is solemnly replacing the stocks of chemicals in her bag, apparently all out. Halfway down his suit again, Fred looks like he’s trying to fix some of the inner mechanics of his suit. Hiro peeks over the edge, willing to help.

“I’m guessing it didn’t go so well for you guys either,” he says, looking down at Fred but addressing the group as a whole.

“Hey Hiro,” Honey Lemon greets with an attempt at cheerfulness. “Yeah…looks kind of like we were completely out of our depth, huh?”

“Oh man, that was the least cool battle I’ve ever been in,” Fred agrees. “And I’ve been in like…three now.” Wasabi and Gogo don’t add a comment in.

“How’d you fare against the third?” Honey Lemon asks. Hiro shoots upright.

“Right! Well, Baymax handled her, but I have more interesting news,” Hiro says. “There’s a fourth member, I guess.”

The whole team stares at him. “A fourth?” Wasabi repeats with a horrified tone.

“Yeah…” Hiro scratches head. “I mean, he didn’t exactly attack me? But he was wearing a fox mask, kind of like the one Callaghan wore and there was some weirdness about him, I don’t really get it. He got away before Baymax could scan him. Here, let me.” Hiro makes a rough sketch of the mask and the figure, hoping his friends would be able to give him some insight.

“Can’t say I’ve seen someone with a ‘glowing red eye’ before,” Gogo says, deadpan.

Hiro rolls his eyes. “Fine, don’t believe me. But he was there, and he had some weird metal thing on his arm.”

“Almost like a cyborg!” Fred declared. There was a chorus of chuckles from the rest of Hiro’s friends, but he froze. _What if…?_

“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Honey Lemon explains. “The description just seems a bit fantastical, and Baymax said you were a little confused. But I think we should definitely keep an eye out for this guy.”

“That’s a good idea,” Wasabi agrees. “Even if he’s not _exactly_ like Hiro says he is, he could still be trouble. For the time being though, I’m going home, and I’m going to sleep for fourteen hours straight.”

“Same for me,” Gogo seconds. “See you nerds tomorrow for gear fixing.” The rest of the friends bid each other good night, still somewhat somber, but Hiro can’t shake that he’s missing something.

 

\-----------------

 

When he wakes, sweating and gasping, in the middle of the night, Hiro feels a sense of deep-seated dread in his chest. He doesn’t leave the relative safety of his bed, mentally kicking himself for being a baby, but something feels…off. Wrong. His heart pounds so wildly he’s surprised Baymax doesn’t activate, given the sensor he’d placed on the robot.

Hiro peers around the room suspiciously, jolting at any oddity in the usual mess of his room. Everything is in its place, but the paranoia still lingers, shooting ice through his veins with every heartbeat. Hiro decides to ignore it and try to sleep, flipping on his side and pulling the covers over his shoulder. Of course, that puts him in the perfect position to look over at Tadashi’s side of the room and see a single red eye piercing the dark and fixed right on him.

Hiro doesn’t scream, but not for lack of trying. His mouth gapes open but only strangled gasps manage to enter and escape, not a single word or sound. Maybe it’s for the better—even as he sits up and throws himself across the room, fox-mask doesn’t move from his position, perched on Tadashi’s bed. The cool night air stirs the tails of his mask’s bindings and Hiro’s bangs. Fox-mask tilts his head a little, almost curiously. Hiro is mildly comforted by the fact that if this guy wanted him dead, he’d be dead.

“Who are you?” Hiro asks, trying not to sound scared. The figure does not respond in any way, so Hiro gets braver.

“Do you work for the Fujitas?”

“Why didn’t you kill me, then or now?”

“ _Who are you?_ ”

He’s taken a step forward with each question, and now he’s past his bed and far too close to fox-mask to be comfortable. It’s not like Baymax could inflate in time to protect him either. Still, the intruder doesn’t move. Hiro takes a few baby steps forward almost recklessly, a small animal approaching a would-be predator. He ducks his head a little to try and make out any of the man’s features.

Without warning, fox-mask draws a sword from the scabbard on his back and whips the blade forward, stopping it at Hiro’s neck. Hiro freezes, eyes wide, unaware that he had wandered into the man’s striking range. The hand—no, his entire _arm_ glints in the low light, made completely of metal. Hiro is both horrified and fascinated. _Fred was right…_

Hiro doesn’t have any time to admire the craftsmanship that had to go into making an arm like that because fox-mask tilts the sword, drawing it across Hiro’s neck and pressing in just enough to draw a steady stream of blood. Hiro gasps at the sharp pain, flinching away, but the blade follows him, pressing harder in warning. He closes his eyes and swallows painfully. If he moves away again, fox-mask will kill him.

He’s not sure how long he stands there, hands curled into white-knuckled fists, but the pain goes dull and his nightshirt’s collar is soaked through with his blood. He probably could have summoned Baymax, but who knew what would set the fox-mask off? Hiro opens his eyes to meet those of fox-mask’s, violent red and abyssal dark. He bites his lip, but in the end, Hiro is fourteen years old and scared—he lets out the most pathetic whimper he’s uttered since he stopped using diapers.

 _That_ has an effect on the intruder. The steady hold of the blade against Hiro’s throat shudders free and then presses back, lighter and shakier. Fox-mask’s whole arm and sword tremble, but he doesn’t say a word or move any farther than that. Hiro’s gaze flickers from the blade to the mask. _He can’t kill me?_

As quickly as it is drawn, the sword is sheathed, and fox-mask vaults backwards off Tadashi’s bed and through the open window in one movement. Hiro rushes after him, sticking his head out the window.

“Wait!” He calls into the dimly lit street, but there is only the yowl of an alley cat and the slamming of a door to answer him.

**Author's Note:**

> oh, and in case you ever felt the urge to literally set yourself on fire, '[Let It Burn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG2usu-el68)' by Red is the theme of this fic, 80/10 recommend listening to it. you won't regret it. well.


End file.
